Second Chances
by Tales Fan
Summary: A teenager gets hit by a car on his way to school and is close to death when he is given the chance to try again in life. Except as a person living in Sylvarant. Gets better after the first chapter. Please R&R.
1. The Accident

**A/N: Hey, TF here. I have been thinking about a Tales self-insert for a while now, though I wanted to change it up from the usual. No one is going to be sucked into GameCubes or anything. Or Wii's either, since you can totally play ToS on that too. But you'll have to see what I mean by a 'change' whenever I start it up. Now I'm not really good at these author's notes...I'll probably wait until I have something more to say. So, disclaimer and then I'll start.**

**Disclaimer: This will be in effect throughout the whole story, so do not go looking for it in every single chapter. I do not own Tales of Symphonia or the general storyline - I just own any plot twists, extra characters not in the game, and my own imagination that made this story possible.**

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It was a pretty standard day, at least in my book. It started out just like it always did, with my alarm blaring annoyingly loudly in my ear. With a groan, I pulled my hand out of the mess of blankets piled on my bed and slammed it down on the snooze button. Ten more minutes of sleep wouldn't hurt. It's not like I would miss school just by sleeping ten extra minutes, since the sleep was dearly needed. Staying up until one in the morning playing the PlayStation2 was not the smartest choice in the world, quite honestly.

However, those ten minutes were not to be. My younger sister barged into the room, and I winced as the door slammed into the wall. There was already a hole there from the doorknob breaking through the plaster; she was just making it bigger. "Fish, time to get up. Mom says so!" she sang. I closed my eyes tight and drew the blankets above my head. Lizzy jumped onto the bed and started bouncing, which made it very difficult to ignore the fact that she was there.

"Elizabeth, get off my bed," I griped, and the bouncing stopped when she realized I was at least awake enough to talk. The pressure on my bed lifted, and for a moment I thought she had left my room. But of course she didn't. When I drew back the fleece blanket to see if she was still there, I noticed a ten-year-old girl pretty much in my face. Needless to say, that startled me. I shot up straight with a yelp, while scrambling backward. She was in my personal space, and it was very unnerving.

Lizzy just grinned and skipped out of the room calling, "Fisher's up!" Grumbling to myself, I flung the remaining covers off of me, where they landed in a heap by my bed, and got up. Without even really seeing what I was putting on, I got dressed and shook my head quickly to get my hair to lie flat. Unlike most of the other boys at school, my hair was short enough that it did whatever I wanted it to, whether that be lay down or be spiky, and that I didn't look like a girl.

Once I was sure I had everything I needed for school (having had to grab my math homework off the floor; it looked like my cat had slept on it last night), I left my room and pulled the door closed behind me. The plaque of a fish hit the door. Something my youngest sister had gotten me for Christmas.

Downstairs, my three siblings and parents were getting ready to go. Lizzy was watching SpongeBob SquarePants and had the remote hidden obviously behind her back, hoping that none of us would try and change the channel. I think she forgets that we can control the channels with the television. Anyway, Mom was helping six-year-old Anna to get some cereal, since she was so small that it was hard for her to reach the bowls and food and stuff. My dad was lacing up his shoes, always the first to leave. I was actually surprised he was still here. And my older brother, Drazon (eighteen; two years my senior), was busy eating breakfast at the kitchen table.

"Morning," I said. Lizzy just glanced at me, Dad smiled before hurrying out the door (obviously late for work), Mom returned my greeting, Anna grinned and almost spilled cereal all over the counter but Mom helped her, and Drazon raised his spoon in greeting. I quickly got myself a bowl of Lucky Charms and sat down at the table. Glancing at the clock, I was pleased to see that there was still fifteen minutes until Drazon and I had to leave to go to the local high school which was an easy walking distance from our house.

"Fisher, don't forget about coming down to the elementary school to watch your sister's soccer game," Mom said. If my mouth weren't full of food, I would have asked why she didn't tell Drazon. "Your brother will meet up with us afterwards." Wondering why, I shot Draz a questioning look and he just made a face, which made me raise my eyebrow. When he frowned down at his now empty bowl, I nodded. Apparently he'd recieved some more make-up work from being 'sick' recently.

"Mommy, come on!" Anna called from the front door, before clopping over to us. She liked making noise with her shoes, since she thought that the noise was what caused them to light up in all different colors. She had her coat and backpack on, and I assumed that Elizabeth was still watching TV, but she was probably ready to go too. Mom nodded and, snatching her keys from the counter, left the house with a quick 'bye', pulling the two elementary-school-goers with her.

For a moment the house was silent, except for me finishing up my breakfast. "You ready to go, Fish?" Drazon asked, grinning down at me and making me feel short like normal. He was about half a head taller than me, so I had to look up slightly to look him straight in the eye.

"You bet. I'm totally ready to go get random, meaningless stuff hammered into my head," I said with fake enthusiasm, and Draz laughed as we left the house, locking the door after us. It was quiet while we walked, but it wasn't uncomfortable. The both of us were perfectly fine with not saying anything, unlike our little sisters. Silence was a lot better than a lot of noise smothering someone, in my opinion.

The school was just a couple blocks away, and across a busy street. We stopped at the stop light, waiting for the 'cross' symbol to flash up so we could join the other teenagers crowding around the high school, milling around and just avoiding going inside to their classes. Once the light came on, we stepped across, Drazon leading the way. Suddenly, a car horn drew my attention and I froze on reflex, looking for the source. A car was zooming quickly toward me, the driver obviously distracted. A little late, he spotted me and I saw fear flicker across his face as the tires squealed, the brakes having been slammed on. I just heard Drazon shout, "Fisher!" before there was pain and I instantly blacked out.

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**A/N: Okay, I didn't like the ending very much, but it gets the point across, right? Well, anyway, please review. Tell me if it was good, bad, whatever it might be. I don't care, just so long as you don't flame me. Thanks!**


	2. Meeting Martel

**A/N: Yo, I'm back! I'll probably change the end of that last chapter later, whenever I can better write it. As for now, let's just move on to the next chapter, shall we? Thanks to netbattle_zero for my first and only review for the moment. To mention a couple somethings in your review, I have used the name Fisher a lot and thought it wouldn't stand out in Symphonia which is the realm of all strange-named people, such as Kvar or Yggdrasil. Also, I quite enjoy descriptions so there will always be a lot of those. Now, on with the story!**

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The white light that followed the darkness was blinding, and I squinted past it, letting my eyes gradually adjust. As soon as they had, however, I realized there wasn't even anything for me to see past the white landscape. Heck, I couldn't even tell what I was standing on! It looked more like I was floating in a big, white void than anything else. Frankly, it was more than a little creepy.

Trying to get some kind of hint as to where I was, I spun in a small circle on the spot. However, it did nothing to help since all I saw was white, white, and – you guessed it – more white. But a sudden splash of color caught my attention, and I spun around to face it, only to stare in confusion.

In front of me, walking along whatever surface was in this strange, most likely imaginary place (hopefully it wasn't the inside of my head; that would be really quite sad. And if it was death, then it was just disappointing and boring) was a woman, who looked younger than my mom – about in her twenties or early thirties.

The woman wore green, which is what had made her stand out from the surrounding landscape. Even her hair was a light shade of green, and there were leaves sticking out of it about where her ears were. Maybe the leaves were her ears? Who knew anymore…

Anyway, whether the leaves were her ears or not, she came toward me and stopped about a yard away, just staring for a moment. This made me really uncomfortable, seeing as how I had no idea who this person was, where _I_ was, or what the hell was going on. It was a strange predicament I had somehow gotten myself into, and I wanted out, if anything else to make the lady stop staring at me.

"I've been waiting to meet you, Fisher," she said gently, and I was startled out of my thoughts at her words; both the suddenness of them and…

"How'd you know my name?" I demanded, frowning at her, since I know for a fact that I had not met her before and had not just given my name to this strange, forest-y woman. She just smiled a smile that my mom usually used on my little sisters when they asked a silly question. It annoyed me.

"Like I said, I've been waiting. However, this meeting is much earlier than I would have hoped." This meant nothing to me, not that it mattered anyway since it seemed the woman was more of talking to herself than me. However, her next comment definitely _was_ directed at me. Either that or she had some major split personalities that she had to get checked out, like Golem and Sméagol in Lord of the Rings. "You're probably wondering where you are right now, aren't you?"

For a second, I just stared blankly at the woman. She knew where I was? Or rather, where we were? Then I managed to nod, knowing I looked thoroughly confused as she smiled again and explained. "You are in a space between life and death. Generally, people don't stop by on their path to whatever afterlife they're destined for, however you managed to find just the right point to stop, and here you are. Not yet dead, yet no longer living."

"Wait…not dead, yet not alive? How the heck is that even possible? You have to be either one or the other," I argued, looking around the small stopping point. The way she'd phrased it, it sounded to me like a train stain. I could just imagine a conductor's voice over the intercom, "Next stop, the afterlife!" Yeah, right.

The woman thought about it for a long moment. When I was thinking about just ditching her and trying to find a way back to the 'living' side, she answered. "You haven't yet joined the rest of the deceased that pass by, yet you are no longer able to perform any conscious actions in your world," she explained, and I just frowned, while messing with the hem of my shirt a little bit. "Don't worry, you'll understand in time."

For all of two seconds, neither of us spoke, before I asked a question that had been nagging at me for a little while. "Why am I here then, if most people pass by this 'space'?" I asked, gesturing vaguely with my hand to signal the random void. Then, before she could even open her mouth to answer, I added, "And just who are you anyway?"

"You are here because you have been chosen for a second chance at life, albeit in a different world than that which you are accustomed to," the woman answered, completely ignoring my second question. "It's been decided that you will start up a new life in another world, in order to help there. That is, if you wish."

"Another world? Are you crazy?" I said, half-shouting. I was getting extremely fed up with this, and just wanted to go home, even if I would wake up in a hospital bed after the crash. "There's no such thing as another world, or a second chance at life. All this is probably a hallucination anyway caused by the accident. Besides, even if I did this, I wouldn't be able to see my family ever again anyway!" I was shouting by the end, but the woman didn't seem to mind in the least.

Calmly, she cut in as soon as my rant was over with. "If you go through with this, it will give us more time to stabilize your body on Earth so your spirit might be able to go back to it, over time, so you can see your family," she reasoned, and I didn't answer, chewing it over for a second.

On the one hand, we had an offer of going to another universe most likely, where I would live a new life for reasons unknown to me. It's not like I had any great abilities that would be helpful anywhere other than on the baseball field. And there was still the fact that I wouldn't be home; I'd be surrounded by strangers and wouldn't know a thing about the world I'd be thrown into.

However, on the other hand, there was a chance I could see my family again. I wouldn't be dead, which in all honesty would suck. And that's a major understatement. I'd be able to see Lizzy go to the junior high; join Drazon in college once I graduated; watch little Anna grow up. My parents wouldn't have to lose one of their children, or my siblings a brother. Everything would be perfectly fine, all in a short time. I'd probably awaken from a coma, and everything would be just like it always was. That, and I had promised to go to Anna's soccer game after school.

The second argument easily outweighed the first. I looked at the woman, who was patiently awaiting my decision. With a big sigh, I told her, "Alright. I'll do it. Just try and get me back home soon, please."

The woman smiled, and she started to fade from view as darkness took over my vision. "Oh, and who are you?" I tried again, before everything disappeared. At this, the woman grinned before answering, right as I lost consciousness.

"Martel."

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**A/N: Alright, I found that chapter fun to write and a lot easier than the last. If you have any questions that pop up here, I promise they will all be answered at one time or another. But voicing them doesn't hurt, because then I know what all I really _have_ to address. So, please review! It'd be much appreciated.**


	3. Shade and Roco

**A/N: Alrighty, this chapter is longer than the other two (about twice as long), which I always find is a good thing. Also, it may be a little confusing since it will be entirely different than the start of the story. But again, all will be explained later. As in, many chapters later, whenever I get around to it. And this kind of update will not happen for a while, since it's highly unlikely I'll get more than one chapter up at a time past today.**

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When I woke up the next morning, I had to look around to remind myself where I was. For a moment, the wood paneling of the wall and floor, the furniture, the position of the window…none of it was recognizable. It wasn't until my little brother came in that I got my head on straight.

"Fisher!" Tomie called, coming over and sitting on my bed, looking a little upset. I sat up, now wide awake. Of course I knew where I was; it was easy, this was my house in Luin. The dreams I often had of that other world just confused me most mornings. "Do you really have to go? There's a school here, too."

With a small smile, I ruffled the ten-year-old's hair affectionately. "Yeah, but Palmacosta has the _academy_. It's the best school anywhere. Besides, Mom did mention something about letting you tag along if you wanted to…" I trailed off as the small boy's eyes lit up, his upset expression suddenly disappearing.

"Really?" he asked, excited, and I nodded. With that, he launched himself off my bed, out the door, and down the stairs to confirm it with our mom. I chuckled and stretched, getting out of bed and going to scrounge up the clothes I'd left out of my pack for today.

As I got dressed, I thought about the dream I'd had. It was like all the others I had, all about a whole other world. There, I had a much bigger family – two younger sisters, an older brother, me, and my parents – and the places didn't even exist. Most people would sign it off as an overactive imagination, however I knew for a fact that dreams were made whenever the brain reviewed what had happened throughout the day. With that being the case, none of my dreams made sense since I never thought about anything new happening in that world throughout the rest of the day.

However, I was starting to accept it as being perfectly normal by now. The only problem was that I confused that with reality at times, which made me very confused in the mornings, such as now.

Once I was sure I was completely ready, I had to look myself over to make sure I hadn't forgotten anything. I had my blue T-shirt, my green vest, long brown coat with just the top button done, green pants and ankle-high brown boots. It looked perfectly fine to me, which was good, because I had a tendency to forget things. Before leaving, I ran a hand through my hair to make it stand up before snapping my fingers upon remembering something I almost forgot. "Right, headband… Where did I put it?"

The search for the blue headband took a little while, since it had somehow fallen under my dresser, but once I found it, I slid it on. It helped to make my hair stand up more, though a few pieces fell over the fabric, mostly into my eyes. I ignored them, and snatched my bag from the foot of the bed, grunting at the weight. I probably should have packed a little lighter…

Downstairs, I could smell eggs cooking in the kitchen as my mom prepared breakfast for me and Tomie. Dropping my bag by the foot of the stairs, I went in to see her moving around the kitchen and trying to find all the cooking supplies she needed. I honestly had no idea why she added so much to eggs (milk, cheese, ham, onions, peppers, salt), but she did.

Tomie was not there, probably upstairs trying to throw a pack together, and I slid into a seat at the table to wait for our food. Mom smiled at me as soon as she noticed my entrance, throwing the vegetables in with the eggs. "Good morning, Fisher. Ready for your trip?" she asked, looking happy that I could go but I could tell that she was upset to see her two sons leave.

"Yep! I'm all packed and ready to go. I'll just have to collect my bow from the hall before I leave," I said, grinning at her as she finished breakfast and put a very large portion of eggs on a plate in front of me.

"Well, you had better be careful out there, and make sure to protect your little brother. He still hadn't quite gotten the hang of his sword yet, and I don't want anything to happen to you two," Mom said, the suppressed worry leaking out in her voice as she came over to me. "And make sure you keep your ears hidden, just in case." As she said this, she messed with my headband, pulling it over my slightly pointed ears so I looked completely human.

It took me a second to answer, seeing as how I had a huge bite of egg/meat/vegetable/thing in my mouth. "Don't worry, Mom. We'll be fine. I'll send Roco home with a message as soon as we arrive," I assured her, referring to the eagle we'd trained as a carrier pigeon of sorts.

Mom just nodded sadly, and started fiddling with my hair. I batted her hand away, and she laughed, going to see if Tomie needed any help with his things. I assumed so, since there was a loud crash and a yelp from upstairs that made her just go faster.

An hour later, the two of us were ready to go. Our mom had given us both a heavy coat as well as a sleeping bag, just in case, which we attached to the top of our packs. I also had another, smaller bag with a small food supply and some spare money in it that I slung over one shoulder with my bow and quiver. She'd also given me a set of throwing knives, which she hadn't let me touch before, in case I ran out of arrows when I came across some monsters. After that, it was just a lot of hugging and a big teary, motherly goodbye before the two of us were actually headed toward the town exit.

"Hey, brother?" Tomie said, looking up at me while adjusting the short sword hanging at his hip. "Do you think Mom will be okay alone? Because she's still upset about Dad leaving." He frowned and kicked a pebble, obviously more than just upset that our dad had decided to join the Desians in the nearby human ranch.

"Don't worry," I said, smiling slightly. "I'm sure Mom will be just fine. She'll get over it, and we can send messages back and forth with Roco whenever we want. He is a fast bird, after all." I reached up to my left hand shoulder – the one that didn't have a ton of stuff on it – and stroked the head of the eagle rested there, his claws digging into my shoulder.

Tomie didn't look convinced but nodded anyway, falling silent. For all of ten seconds. "How long does it take to get to Palmacosta?" he asked, right as we left Luin's town boundaries.

"About three days," I answered, and he looked surprised and also a little weary already just from mentioning it. "Four if we have to make a lot of stops." Which I suspected we would, because Tomie did not have the best stamina in the world. He would probably want a break soon, even.

"Wouldn't it have been faster to get a cart? Hey, Fisher, didn't Mom give you some money? We could have someone take us there," he suggested, getting very excited over the idea, though his face fell when I shook my head.

"No. Mom gave us money for supplies. We're not going to pay someone to take us there when we can walk there ourselves. It is why we left early, after all." Tomie sighed, and the two of us became silent for a while.

Throughout the day, we had to make a numerous amount of stops since my little brother was not up to the challenge of dragging his bag around everywhere while keeping a sword strapped to his belt. At each of these rest points, he kept pestering me about getting someone to take us to Palmacosta. I always said no.

When we stopped for the night, it was about another three-day journey to Palmacosta, though I was glad that we hadn't had to waste the energy we were supposed to use getting there in fights. Luckily, no monsters had come across the well-worn, human-smelling path that led from Luin, or else we'd be much more tired than we were that night.

For dinner, Tomie used a quick Fireball (the only spell he had managed to pull off so far) to light our fire, while I made some spaghetti and meat sauce. While I cooked, Roco preened his feathers from his perch on top of our supplies while Tomie practiced his sword fighting skills against an imaginary opponent.

"Whoa!" he cried, and next thing I knew, there was a ten-year-old sprawled in the dirt with his sword luckily not having impaled anything.

"What the heck were you doing?" I asked, a faint smile on my face as I abandoned our dinner for a moment to help him up. He set down his sword in order to brush himself off and grinned up at me.

"I was practicing and tripped on a hole while I was backing up," he explained, pointing to the slight hole in the ground about where he had tripped. "I'm okay, though."

"Good. Just be careful, alright?" I said, and Tomie nodded. Suddenly his grin disappeared and he looked over toward the campfire, simply pointing. A little curious about his sudden mood change, I turned around. A small wolf, not yet an adult, was inching closer to the food. It looked half starved, and was eyeing the pot of boiling noodles while ignoring us entirely. "Hey, shoo, leave that alone!" I shouted, running toward it. The wolf just looked at me and held his ground, even when I got close.

After the animal saw me pass by the pot of food, it gave a hungry whine and chanced moving even closer. As it got further into the light, the wolf seemed to look even more starved that it first appeared. I could see its ribs quite clearly, and it was unsteady on its paws. Its tail drooped down to the ground, and its ears weren't sticking up like a normal wolf's did. Overall, it just looked fairly pathetic.

"Fisher, he looks hungry. We should give him something to eat," Tomie suggested, however he stayed over on the other side of the fire, stroking Roco's feathers to keep the bird from flying up and investigating the new arrival. "It wouldn't hurt, and we can always make more…"

For a moment, I just glanced between the food and the wolf, as the half-starved animal inched closer, eyes focused on the pot. I didn't see why Tomie wanted to forfeit our dinner for the animal, but then again my brother has always been a bit of a softie when it comes to creatures like the wolf.

About the time that the wolf was two feet from the pot, I made up my mind. With a sigh, I lifted it from the fire and set it down on the ground, removing the lid. Gratefully, the wolf looked up at me and gave a small, gruff bark before chowing down on the spaghetti that we were going to eat. And it did so very loudly as well.

"Okay, it looks like we'll have sandwiches tonight," I told Tomie, who nodded, finding that alright with him. He watched the wolf eat, before abandoning his spot by Roco and slowly approaching the hungry monster, one hand out in a soothing fashion. I watched to make sure nothing happened as he stopped right by the creature's head, and hesitantly ran his hand through its fur.

Curious, the wolf looked up from its meal, water dripping from its muzzle, to look at Tomie. However, it didn't see my brother as a threat and just licked his hand, much like any normal house dog would do. A large grin appeared on Tomie's face and he continued to gently stroke the wolf. "We should keep him. He needs somewhere to stay," he said, looking over at me while I got the ingredients for simple sandwiches out of our bags.

"No. He probably has a pack to go to or something. We can't take care of him in cities or anything, Tomie. Everyone would run him out since he is a monster, after all," I reminded him, and the boy's face fell as he looked down at the wolf. Quickly, I looked away before he could make me feel guilty about my decision.

From behind me I heard a small sniffle and I bit my lip, refusing to turn around and see my brother crying. I really hated it when he was upset, and it was even worse when he was upset because of me. I tried to block out the sniffles as I made our dinner, but finally I caved. "Alright, fine," I sighed, looking back over at him. Tomie looked surprised and wiped his eyes on his sleeve. "But don't be upset if he leaves of his own free will or attacks us as soon as he's well again," I warned him, and a large grin lit up his face.

"Don't worry, Fisher! He wouldn't do that. He's a good wolf," the boy assured me, and I just nodded, getting up and handing him a sandwich which he happily bit into, sitting next to the wolf. The creature had finished its meal and laid down, closing its eyes for a nap. "He needs a name... How about Shade because of his black fur?"

And just like that, Shade the wolf was part of our group. Against the wills of me and Roco.

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**A/N: I enjoy having animal companions; they make it a little more interesting in my opinion. And having a messenger eagle and a friendly wolf is really cool. Anyway, please review while I work on chapter four. Reviews for this chapter and the last will be addressed in the next author's note if they need to be or if I just feel like it.**


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